Their lives, deaths touch us all

A father who left a simple note for his wife and children, expecting to return from a quick business trip. A husband whose oddly calm words are captured on an answering machine, saying his plane had been hijacked and he loved his family. A flight attendant on the job less than a year since retiring from his first career, as a police officer.

Even as identities of thousands lay buried in rubble, the names of the dead and a few small details of lost lives began to trickle out Wednesday.

Brian Sweeney

Consultant Brian Sweeney, 38, was on his way from Boston to Los Angeles for business. When Sweeney realized the plane was hijacked, he made two phone calls: one to his parents, the other to his wife, Julie. She wasn't home, so he left his last words on the answering machine.

"He was calm and said, `I'm on the plane, it's been hijacked and it doesn't look good. But I want you to know how much I love you and my family,'" said Julie, a physical education and health teacher, from their home in Barnstable, Mass. The two were married in 1999. "He said to live a long life and be happy. And he said he'd see me again soon. Then he said he had to go."

At 9:03 a.m., the plane crashed.

"He enjoyed life more than anyone I've ever known," she said of her husband, an avid boater who loved spending time on the ocean with his wife. "He was one of the most incredible people I knew. Or ever will know."

Brent Woodall

John Woodall didn't worry much about his son after an airliner slammed into One World Trade Center Tuesday morning. Brent Woodall, a 31-year-old stock trader who worked on the 89th floor of Two World Trade Center, had called his father on the West Coast in the minutes after the first Boeing 767 plowed into the complex.

"He said, `If you see that on TV, that's not the building I'm in,'" John Woodall said Wednesday from his home in La Jolla, Calif. "He said they weren't leaving."

Minutes later, after John Woodall had stepped into the shower, his son called back and left a chilling message on an answering machine.

"This time, he said his building had been hit, and they were getting the hell out of there," Woodall said. "Then he left his wife's cell phone number in New York and asked me to let her know. That was it."

Brent Woodall and a fellow trader later reached their wives on cell phones. The plane had hit the building below their offices, and the men said they were stuck above where the plane struck as they tried to open a stairwell door.

It was the last time anyone would hear from Brent Woodall, leaving his parents to watch television in horror about 40 minutes later as the building from which their son was trying to escape collapsed in a thundering cloud of dust and debris.

Alfred G. Marchand

Alfred G. Marchand had been a flight attendant less than a year when he worked United Airlines Flight 175 on Tuesday. At 44, he had just retired from his first career--as a police officer.

After working his way up the ranks to lieutenant over 21 years with his hometown police department in New Mexico, Marchand was making vacation reservations when he happened upon a job posting for flight attendants late last year, his wife's best friend said.

On a whim, he signed up, said Connie Lane. "He just decided to do something really different. It really surprised us."

As it turned out, he loved it.

He and his wife of four years, Rebecca, had met for the weekend in Boston. She was scheduled to fly back to New Mexico when her husband flew off to work, but the pair almost changed plans to spend a few more hours together in the air. She considered switching to fly on his plane.

In the end, she worried that she might not be able to rearrange her flights to get home and kept her original plan.

Jeffrey Mladenik

A hurried businessman and Christian pastor, Jeffrey Mladenik had to carve time out of his busy daily schedules to read his Bible. The times he most frequently chose, friends said Wednesday, were on the long flights he commonly took from Boston to Los Angeles.

An associate pastor at Christ Church in Oak Brook, Mladenik, a father of four, was killed when American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center.

"He used his airplane time as his Bible time," said Bill Cirignani, a Chicago attorney who knew Mladenik from a class Mladenik taught at the church. "And I'm sure Jeff would have had that Bible open when the plane was being hijacked and he would have been talking to those other passengers and praying with them."

Mladenik, 43, of Hinsdale worked at Cahners Publishing in Des Plaines for four years. In the past month, he became an interim president of a new Cahners subsidiary, eLogic. Cahners has an office in Boston, and eLogic was based out of Los Angeles, said Jeff Greisch, president of manufacturing and electronics for the Des Plaines office.

Paige Farley HackelRuth McCourtJuliana McCourt

Two women--best friends--boarded two separate planes in Boston and said they would meet in Los Angeles for a weekend of spa luxury and rides with one woman's 4-year-old daughter at Disneyland. Both planes were crashed.

"It's bad enough to lose someone you love," said Patricia Church of Winthrop, Mass., who was friends with Paige Farley Hackel, 46, and Ruth McCourt, 45, both of whom died Tuesday morning.

Hackel had been on American Airlines Flight 11, which crashed into one of the World Trade Center twin towers. McCourt, along with her young daughter, Juliana, had been on United Airlines Flight 175, which crashed into the second tower.

Ruth McCourt's brother happened to be staying at the World Trade Center Marriott when his sister's plane plowed into the towers. He escaped safely, according to a second family friend.

David Kovalcin

David Kovalcin, 42, an engineer for Raytheon from New Hampshire, was headed to the West Coast for business on American Airlines Flight 11 out of Boston Tuesday morning. He left a note for his wife of five years and their daughters--ages 4 and 1--telling the three how much he would miss them while he was away, said a cousin of Kovalcin's wife.

Garnet `Ace' Bailey

Garnet "Ace" Bailey, 53, who twice won the Stanley Cup as a player in the late 1960s and early '70s with the Boston Bruins, had worked for eight years as the Los Angeles Kings' director of pro scouting. He was on United Flight 175 heading to Los Angeles to the team's training camp, which started Wednesday.

"Ace would probably be the first to admit that he wasn't the best player on the ice," said Jeff Moeller, the team's manager of media relations. "But he knew what it took to win and he showed that to his teammates.

In his 33 years in professional hockey, Bailey played with the Detroit Red Wings, St. Louis Blues, Washington Capitals and with the Edmonton Oilers. Bailey, who lived in Lynnfield, Mass., with his wife and son, had previously worked 13 years as a pro scout for the Edmonton Oilers.

Amy Nicole Jarret

Amy Nicole Jarret had decided to become a flight attendant only because the job market was bad when she graduated from Villanova University in 1994 and she had just happened to encounter a recruiter from a major American airline on campus there.

Jarret was a flight attendant on United Flight 175 that slammed into one of the twin towers of the World Trade Center.

Her father, Aram Jarret, said his daughter was hopelessly in love with her college boyfriend and that a glittering diamond engagement ring seemed only months away. She was a rabid Notre Dame football fan who would call her dad in tears if the Fighting Irish were losing at halftime.

Newlywed Christine Snyder, 32, was an arborist and project manager for the environmental group Outdoor Circle. She changed her flight four times to get home to Kailua, Hawaii. She ended up on the hijacked flight that crashed near Pittsburgh.

Louis Neal Mariani

The last thing Louis Neal Mariani said to his wife before putting her on a plane to Los Angeles was, "I'll be there three minutes after you." With that, the 59-year-old retired dairy worker gave her a kiss.The two booked their flights at different times, and ended up on different planes flying to his stepdaughter's wedding on Saturday.

Two hours later, Ellen Mariani still waited at Chicago's Midway Airport as the nation's air system shut down. When she told fellow travelers that her husband was behind her on a United flight from Boston to Los Angeles, "They just looked at me--and the looks on their faces. It was awful," she said.

Without friends in Chicago, she was welcomed into a stranger's home through a Mormon charity late Tuesday.Her daughter will be married Saturday in Los Angeles. Mariani said she hoped to fly to there Thursday. "Just get me to my kids," she said.

Anna Allison

When Anna Allison and her husband flew together, they held hands on takeoffs and landings, just in case.

But on Tuesday morning, she was supposed to fly alone, from Boston to Los Angeles for a business meeting. So Blake Allison drove his wife from their Stoneham, Mass., home to the airport, waited with her inside the terminal until he had to leave, said "I love you" and left for work.

A coworker told Blake Allison about the first plane crashing into the World Trade Center, the plane that he didn't know carried his wife. He turned on the radio and immediately heard the news of the second plane. He figured the planes must be from New York. He learned quickly they were from Boston.

"I knew immediately," said Blake Allison, who grew up in Lake Bluff.

Robert Jalbert

Robert Jalbert, 61, of Swampscott, Mass., traveled for work nearly every week. This business trip to the West Coast--aboard United Flight 175 from Boston--would have mixed in a family reunion.

Jalbert was a sales manager for Rogers Foam Corp. in Somerville, Mass., where he worked for 20 years. A co-worker who often traveled with him, Maurice Bastarache, said Jalbert didn't like sitting during long trips to California.

"He would get out of his seat, and go stand at the back of the plane, reading or chit-chatting with the crew," recalled Bastarache.

Thelma Cuccinello

Thelma Cuccinello, 71, was an active grandmother of 10 who took up golf last year. She was headed to San Luis Obispo for a low-key visit with her sister and brother-in-law, hoping to spend some time on the links.

Cuccinello's trip was booked by her eldest daughter, Cheryl O'Brien, a Bedford, Mass., travel agent. Her discount vouchers expired at the end of the month.

Cheryl O'Brien drove her mother to the bus stop, kissed her, told her to have a good trip and said goodbye. "I told her I loved her," O'Brien said. "She said the same."

Jane Orth

Jane Orth, 47, of Haverhill, Mass., was on her way to Australia because she was thinking about moving there, said her neighbor and tenant, Beatriz Rosado.

"She was thinking about living there for a year," said Rosado. "She was the best person. She was sweet. You never heard her raise her voice."

Robin Kaplan

Robin Kaplan, 33, of Westborough, Mass., was gaining weight and couldn't be happier. For years she had been battling a disease that causes digestive problems, but had recently shown improvement.

Kaplan and six co-workers were aboard American Airlines Flight 11, which crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center. Kaplan was to help open a new retail store in California.

"I always call her before she leaves on a trip," said her mother, Francine, who works at the same company that her daughter worked at. "I just didn't get a chance this time, for whatever reason. But her boyfriend did. Said goodbye. She said goodbye to someone she loved."

Victor J. Saracini

In Lower Makefield Township outside Philadelphia, friends and relatives mourned the loss of United pilot Victor J. Saracini, who was flying United Flight 175 before it was hijacked. Saracini, 51, is survived by his wife, Ellen and two daughters, ages 14 and 10.

A prayer service was held Tuesday night for Saracini and all of the day's victims at nearby St. Ignatius Church, said Lower Makefield Township Police Chief Ken Coluzzi.

Karleton Fyfe

Karleton Fyfe's mother called his Brookline, Mass., home on Tuesday morning. She had seen the news of burning buildings and wanted to make sure her only son was not inside his 56th floor office in Boston.

He wasn't, Fyfe's wife, Haven, assured her mother-in-law. He was on an airplane.

Fyfe, a 31-year-old John Hancock employee and father of 1-year-old Jackson, was aboard American Airlines 11. The trip was for business.

Kansas City Star columnist Bill Tammeus had written almost all of his column--about the bombing--before he learned that Fyfe, his nephew, was a victim. "He's the kind of kid that if there was anything that could have been done on that plane to help, he would have done it," said Tammeus, who grew up in Woodstock.

Mari-Rae Sopper

Mari-Rae Sopper wasn't scared of tall odds.

As a student at Palatine's Fremd High School in the 1980s, she led the girls gymnastics team from doormat to perennial state power. She planned a similar turnaround at the University of California, Santa Barbara, chucking a Washington law career to take the head coaching job even though the program was slated for elimination.

Sopper, 35, was on her way to the school when her plane crashed into the Pentagon.

Seima Aoyama

Seima Aoyama was an accountant from Culver City, Calif., who was apparently traveling on business when the American Airlines flight he was on crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center.

Born in Japan, Aoyama, 48, was married and had two children, said a family friend, David Kadin.

Robert G. LeBlanc

Robert G. LeBlanc, 70, was a geography professor at the University of New Hampshire who died on his way to a geography conference in Los Angeles aboard United Flight 175.

He liked to travel and had been to numerous exotic and dangerous locales around the world.

He was a great cook, wore Birkenstock sandals and glasses, had a gray beard, and smiled a lot. Easygoing and laid-back, LeBlanc "took care of his wife," a veterinarian, said Ronnie Willard, a receptionist at the Oyster River veterinary clinic owned by LeBlanc's wife, Andrea.

He had five children, Carolyn, Paul and John LeBlanc and Nissa and Kjel Youngren, and two grandsons.

Berry Berenson

Berry Berenson, a photographer and actress, was the wife of the late actor, Anthony Perkins, the star of Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho." Wednesday was the ninth anniversary of his death, at age 60, of complications from AIDS.

Berenson was the granddaughter of the Paris fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli and grandniece of art historian Bernard Berenson. She was also the sister of actress Marisa Berenson. Berry Berenson married Perkins in 1973.

The couple had two children, 27-year-old Osgood Perkins II, an actor who appeared in this summer's comedy movie, "Legally Blonde," and 25-year-old Elvis Perkins, a musician. Berenson appeared in a few movies with her husband, including the 1978 thriller "Remember My Name," and the 1979 mystery "Winter Kills." She also appeared in the 1982 horror film "Cat People" and the 1980 television miniseries "Scruples."

A written statement released by the family said that Berenson was returning home to her sons after a Cape Cod vacation. Berenson had recently completed a book on the late designer Halston in which her photographs are used. In addition, many of her photos have graced past covers of "Interview" and "Life" magazines.

David AngellLynn Angell

David Angell, 54, and his wife, Lynn Angell, 45, both of Pasadena, Calif., were returning from a family wedding on the East Coast to Los Angeles for the upcoming Emmy Awards, which were postponed in the wake of Tuesday's attack.

Angell was the creator and executive producer of the NBC sitcom "Frasier" and had won numerous awards for his work on that show and its predecessor, "Cheers."

A Rhode Island native, Angell worked in the U.S. Army, at the Pentagon, with an enginnering company and an insurance firm on the East Coast before moving to Los Angeles in 1977, when he sold his first television script, according to a biography issued by the Paramount Television Group.

He went another five years, doing "virtually every temporary job known to mankind," the biography said, before he sold his second script. In 1983, he joined "Cheers" as a staff writer, working with his longtime partners, Peter Casey and David Lee. Together the trio won 24 Emmy Awards for their work on "Cheers" and "Frasier." They also worked together on another critically acclaimed television series, "Wings."

Lynn Angell, who Lee and Casey said "epitomized Southern graciousness and charm," was an active philanthropist with her husband. A former librarian at Campbell Hall, a North Hollywood Episcopal school, she was the driving force behind a children's library that opened in 1992 at Hillsides, a center that serves abused children.

Edmund Glazer

Edmund Glazer, 41, was vice president of finance and administration and chief financial officer at MRV Communications, a Chatsworth, Calif.-based telecommunications company. On Tuesday, Glazer was on his way to the headquarters from his home in Wellesley, Mass.

"He called me to let me know that he had made it on the plane," said his wife, Candy. "He said they were about to take off and he had to turn off the cell phone. I'm assuming nothing was going on then, because he sounded normal. We said our byes and he said he would call me when he got there [Los Angeles]."

Born in Zambia, Glazer moved to Los Angeles when he was 17 to attend the University of Southern California. "Everyone knows the U.S. has the best universities and he decided he wanted to study here," said Candy Glazer. "He liked it so much he decided to stay."

Mark Bavis

Two days before his death, pro hockey scout Mark Bavis reconnected with some of the Chicago-area hockey players he coached in Geneva.

"Hockey was in his blood. He always loved the game," said Guy Perron, the head coach for the Chicago Freeze, a North American League team that helped launch Bavis' scouting career with the pros.

"He made an immediate impact on our team, bringing in some of the most talented players. He was an intense person, and he demanded a lot from our kids. But they respected him."

Robert Speisman

Robert Speisman, 48, of Irvington, NY, was a vice president of a New York-based diamond company but was best known among neighbors and friends for his passion for his children and basketball, participating in a regular Sunday morning game.

Working for Lazare Kaplan International, Speisman was traveling from American Flight 77 to Los Angeles on business.

Said a family friend: "He had an immense passion for basketball and will always be remembered as an incredible coach."

Carol Flyzik

Carol Flyzik worked in the marketing department for Canton, Mass.-based Meditech, which sells computer software to hospitals. Flyzik, 40, had cut back on her traveling lately, said her sister, Linda Pritchard, but agreed at the last minute to take this trip.

"She's kind of like a big kid," her sister said. "She was a favorite aunt."

Tom McGuinness

Tom McGuinness, 42, co-captain of American Airlines Flight 11, the first jet to hit one of the World Trade Center's twin towers, was described by friends as a devoted family man who was active in his community and church. He and his wife Cheryl, and their 14-year-old son and 16-year-old daughter had moved into Portsmouth about a year ago and were members of the Bethany Church in Greenland.

Tara Creamer

Tara Creamer, 30, of Worcester, Mass., didn't travel often, family members say, because she didn't like leaving her two young children, Colin, 4, and Nora, 15 months.

But sometimes her job--as a merchandise planning manager for a department store chain--required the tall, wavy-haired Creamer to meet with buyers in Los Angeles, her father-in-law, Gerald F. Creamer, said.

Creamer and six co-workers--all of them women, four of them mothers of young children--boarded American Airlines Flight 11 in Boston for a three-day West Coast business trip.

Daniel C. Lewin

Entrepreneur and math whiz Daniel C. Lewin, 31, co-founder of Massachusetts-based Akamai Technologies, was aboard American Flight 11 on a business trip.

Lewin, who served as a soldier in Israel's Defense Forces, became an instant billionaire--on paper--in November 1999 when Akamai rose in market value by over 400 percent in days. This year Fortune named him to a list of 20 victims of the tech bubble after he lost several billion dollars. He is survived by his wife and two sons. His parents, who still live in Israel, were in town to see him last week, according to a friend.

Leslie A. WhittingtonCharles FalkenbergZoe FalkenbergDana Falkenberg

For Leslie A. Whittington, Charles Falkenberg and their two young daughters, the flight to Los Angeles was to have been only the start of their journey. They were headed to Australia, where Whittington, a Georgetown University economist, was to work as a visiting professor for several months at Australian National University.

The family, friends said, had been planning for this adventure for months. The pair had been married 17 years. Their daughters, Zoe and Dana, were 8 and 3.

Barbara Olson

Friends of Barbara Olson weren't surprised to hear that in the last minutes of American Flight 77, the 45-year-old lawyer and conservative commentator was on her cell phone with her husband, describing the scene and asking for advice on what to do next.

"We talked last night about how typical it was for her to be fighting," said Washington lawyer Victoria Toensing, a friend and colleague of Olson, wife of U.S. Solicitor General Ted Olson. "I can see her on the plane, saying, `Do I have to take over?'"

Waleska Martinez

Four years ago, the U.S. Census Bureau awarded Waleska Martinez a bronze medal for her dedication to her job. On Tuesday, she boarded United Airlines Flight 93 in Newark, N.J., for a Census Bureau conference in San Francisco.

Martinez, 37, hadn't wanted to go: Her mother and brother were visiting from Puerto Rico.

"She felt like she was leaving her heart behind," Martinez's friend and co-worker, Maritza Padilla-Laureda, said Wednesday. "It was very hard for her to get on that plane."

John Talignani

John Talignani was flying to San Francisco to claim the body of his son, who died in a head-on car crash on his honeymoon in California.

"And that's the end," said Talignani's sister, Alice Bertorelli. "And he went down with Flight 93."

Talignani, 74, was a widower and the father of three sons. He worked for 20 years at the Palm Restaurant in Manhattan as a bartender and a steward. His wife of 25 years died four years ago.

On Wednesday afternoon, Bertorelli searched through her brother's apartment, trying to find dental records so her brother's remains might be identified.

Andrew Curry Green

Andrew Curry Green had lived much of his life on the East Coast. Until six months ago, he had worked and lived in the Boston region, for Cahners Publishing. But when the company recently bought out the company eLogic, he moved to Santa Monica, Calif., near Los Angeles where eLogic is headquartered, said Cahners spokeswoman Salina Le Bris.

But this week, Green, 34, found himself back in his hometown, working on a sales pitch with his boss Jeff Mladenik of Hinsdale. Both were headed back, taking American Airlines Flight 11 from Boston to L.A. when it crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center Tuesday.

Sara E. Low

Despite having earned advanced degrees in banking and finance from the University of Arkansas, Sara E. Low was dedicated to her career with American Airlines. And the 29-year-old flight attendant was stationed along the eastern seaboard--a part of the nation she adored.

"She absolutely loved the airlines and helping people," her father, Mike, said Wednesday from his home in Batesville, Ark.

Carol BouchardRenee Newell

It was going to be a midweek "girls weekend" for Carol Bouchard, 43, of Warwick, R.I., and her best friend, Renee Newell, 37, of Cranston, R.I.

The two longtime friends decided months ago to take advantage of a seminar in Las Vegas that Newell, an American Airlines customer service agent, had to attend for a day.

"Renee agreed to stay over a day so they could do the Strip, hit the clubs," said Ed Lamontagne, a close friend of Carol and her husband of nearly two years, Fred.

Bouchard, an emergency room secretary at Kent County Hospital, wanted to go on the trip so badly, she ignored her fear of flying. "We just pray to God she didn't suffer," Lamontagne said.

Peter Hashem

Peter Hashem, 40, of Lawrence, Mass., was headed to Los Angeles on a business trip Tuesday morning. He had worked for Teradyne Inc. as an engineer since graduating from the University of Massachusetts about 20 years ago.

His sister, Najat Arsenault, said her brother had been married for more than 15 years, and was the father of two boys -- ages 11 and 9. "He was amazing," Arsenault said, sobbing. "He was a wonderful husband and father."

Norma C. Khan

Norma C. Khan, 44, of Reston, Va., was on a business trip to Nevada, taking American Airlines Flight 11 through Los Angeles, according to her sister.

Karen A. Kincaid

Karen A. Kincaid, a 40-year-old partner in a Washington, D.C., law firm, was traveling to a conference in Los Angeles where she was doing pro bono work for people in need of organ transplants, colleagues said.

Laura Lee Morabito

Though Laura Lee Morabito woke up early Tuesday morning to catch a flight from Boston to Los Angeles, there was no guarantee she would be able to board the plane. Morabito, 34, arrived with a coupon to fly standby, so the Qantas Airways account sales manager was among the last people to board the plane.

Thomas E. Burnett Jr.

Thomas E. Burnett Jr. would not even have been on United Airlines Flight 93 had he not wanted to return to his Northern California home to see his wife and three children.

Burnett, 38, and other passengers--Mark Bingham and Jeremy Glick--tried to foil the hijacking, sending the plane crashing into the countryside outside of Pittsburgh, killing all of its passengers but avoiding a potentially much greater loss of life.

"So many more people could have been killed," said Burnett's sister, Mary Margaret Burnett. "He and the others did a really amazing thing."

Alexander Filipov

Alexander Filipov, a 70-year-old electrical engineer, was on his way to a meeting with officials of a company for whom he was a consultant. Filipov, the father of Boston Globe Moscow bureau chief David Filipov, originally held a ticket for a Delta flight but switched at the last minute to American Flight 11.

Among those still missing Wednesday was Steve Jacobson, a maintenance engineer for WPIX-Ch.11, the Tribune Co.-owned WB affiliate in New York. Jacobson for years had worked in a 110th-floor transmitter room near the top of the north World Trade Center tower, where WPIX and other stations have broadcasting antennas.

After the first hijacked plane struck the north tower, Jacobson's colleagues called him on the phone. "He said there was smoke filling up the room," said Betty Ellen Berlamino, WPIX general manager. "He was having difficulty breathing, and then the line went dead."

Former police officer CeeCee Lyles, a flight attendant, called her husband to say she loved him just before her aircraft crashed in Pennsylvania.

"Just hearing my wife saying she loved us through all that chaos on that plane is just embedded in my heart forever," said Lorne Lyles, her husband and a Ft. Myers police office. "That's my baby. She's my heart, she's my soul, she is my everything. That's my memory."

John Ogonowski

John Ogonowski, a Massachusetts farm boy and former Air Force pilot, pursued his life's dream--flying planes. He was the pilot of American Airlines Flight 11.

Ogonowski, who had just celebrated his 52nd birthday, lived on a 150-acre farm anchored by a large white house. Standing on the front steps of the farm Tuesday under a huge American flag, Ogonowski's younger brother, Jim, told reporters: "Take a good look at that, the beauty of the land around here. That's John's legacy."

Charles `Chuck' Jones

Charles "Chuck" Jones, 48, of Bedford, Mass., was a retired Air Force colonel who worked as a manager for BAE Systems, a defense contractor based in New Hampshire. In the 1980s, Jones qualified as a NASA space shuttle payload specialist, but the mission on which he was scheduled to participate was canceled after the Challenger crash.

Jeffrey Coombs

Jeffrey Coombs, 42, of Abington, Mass., was a program manager for Compaq Computer Corp., where he started less than a year ago after working at Fidelity Investments for years. He was going to Los Angeles on business on American Airlines Flight 11, said his brother, Doug Coombs.

He described his brother as a "gentle giant" who coached soccer and was a camping and hiking enthusiast.

Michele M. Heidenberger

Michele M. Heidenberger, 57, a flight attendant on the plane that struck the Pentagon, worked for the airline for 25 years.

Family members said she was trained five years ago in how to deal with a hijacking. "Knowing Michelle, she was probably the one who would have approached them first and said you can't go into the cockpit," said sister-in-law Betsy Heidenberger.

Alan A. Beaven

Alan A. Beaven, 48, of the Oakland, Calif., area, was an environmental lawyer known for working on high-profile clean-water cases. After spending several weeks at a bucolic spiritual retreat in the Catskills, he was on his way home to try one last case--a federal trial in Sacramento--before beginning a yearlong sabbatical, friends and colleagues said.

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